Defensibility, Cooperation, and Centralization: A Comparative Analysis of the Interrelationship Between Warfare and Sociopolitical Organization in Late Intermediate Period Peru

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This research advances the current theoretical agendas of warfare scholars, overcoming the limitations of earlier social evolutionary theories and examining the interrelationship between warfare and sociopolitical organization in the Huamanga Province of Peru during the Late Intermediate Period (LIP, AD 1000-1450). Only through the analysis of this interrelationship can scholars begin to understand warring societies across time and space. The LIP is an ideal period to study this relationship, as it has often been characterized as a time of violent conflict and social transformation. More specifically, this paper presents the final results of archaeological surveys carried out at fourteen sites in the Huamanga Province. These surveys included extensive mapping of all standing architecture, surface artifact analyses, and GIS-based spatial and visibility studies. First, focusing on the fourteen sites, this paper evaluates local (site-level) relationships of community cooperation and power and associated practices of defense. Then, incorporating all known LIP sites in the region, it considers how sociopolitical interactions between LIP settlements (regional-level relationships) relate to defensibility practices.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40361.0